Microsoft quarterly profit edged lower as Office software sales slowed ahead of a new launch, offsetting a solid but unspectacular start for its Windows 8 operating system and sending the company's shares down 1.4 percent.

Here's some of what will shape the week ahead on Wall Street: Big guns like Microsoft and Coke reports earnings; "toy guns" such as Mattel do too; eBay is expected to bid itself up; and we'll hear from some of Citigroup's "Champions."

It's been awfully quiet on the earnings front in recent weeks, and there's a reason: This is the time of year when accountants are nailing down the financials for the fiscal quarters that ended in September. Later this week, the conference calls will begin trickling in, and then it will be a deluge of quarterly reports until early November.

Some Street-related dispatches from last week's entry in the Human Comedy: Kim Kardashian filed a silly sounding but well-grounded lawsuit against Old Navy's use of a lookalike; gaming magnate Steve Wynn went all FOXNews on a conference call; and Barnes and Noble surged, nonsensically, on Borders' liquidation.

Microsoft delivers blowout earnings, and shares open lower the following morning. It seems bizarre, but it's part of a larger trend in technology stocks. And Wall Street's muted reaction is a sign that investors are finally catching on to Microsoft's game -- i.e., avoiding US taxes.

There's no such thing as a summertime lull when earnings season is upon us. Next week will bring plenty of headlines -- among them box office receipts for the last Harry Potter film and quarterly results from Apple, Cintas, and Microsoft.

Investors are buying into the meme that Windows is dying -- and therefore Microsoft is as well. While tablets are clearly cutting into the giant's core PC business, Microsoft is also showing remarkable agility in building new franchises for the future, the Kinect for one.

With corporate earnings season in full swing -- watch for McDonalds, along with Catepillar, Amazon and other -- and with the Fed meeting on interest rates, the GDP estimate and housing numbers coming out -- the week ahead is expected to be quite busy.

Microsoft Corp.'s fiscal first-quarter earnings jumped 51% as the world's largest software maker boosted sales of its Office 2010 product and took share in the videogame-console market. Shares rose in after-hours trading after earnings and revenue both beat analyst estimates.

Software giant Microsoft reported record revenue on strong sales of the company's Windows 7 and Office products as businesses upgrade their systems after sitting on the sidelines during the recession. But the solid results failed to impress investors looking for a growth catalyst.

Microsoft is expected to report revenue Thursday of $15.3 billion on $61.7 billion in sales for the last year. Microsoft shares remain priced at about $25 per share, where they've hovered for the last three years, compared with Apple shares which have increased by over 60% over the last year.